Victors should engage with the defeated

The change of government doesn’t mean everything must be replaced. Continuity is often important and sound policies and good people should be retained.

I HAVE experienced it first-hand. It wasn’t my first and last such experience, but certainly my most traumatic.

I was hardly 45 when I was told to leave my post as chief editor of the Utusan Melayu Group. Our youngest kid was six and the eldest was 16. It was July 14, 1998. It took another 50 days before Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was fired on Sept 2 that year.

The purge in the media began with me and continued with Datuk Ahmad Nazri Abdullah of Berita Harian and Yunus Said of TV3.

We saw it coming and we accepted that. All three of us were perceived as “Anwar’s boys”.

The newspaper I edited, Utusan Malaysia (and before that, Utusan Melayu, published in jawi script) has had its editors losing their jobs before. It happened to Said Zahari (who was incarcerated for 17 years under the Internal Security Act), Tan Sri Melan Abdullah, Tan Sri Mazlan Nordin and my predecessor, Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin.

We knew the routine. As they say in Malay, sekali air bah, sekali pantai berubah (every time there’s a flood, there’s a change in the shoreline).

And it wasn’t just the editors back then; many others in the business circle and other disciplines were purged. The Malay business community lost another batch of businessmen and businesswomen.

It happened when Tun Musa Hitam lost his position, then Anwar, then Tun Daim Zainuddin, and even when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi resigned.

There is now another round of purging in the media and the business community.

In the corporate world, the “changes” are far more wide-ranging than ever before. Perhaps many board members in many listed entities too will have to go.

We are losing some of the corporate sector’s finest minds. Many of them are young, capable and well-respected. They are the products of many years of grooming and experience.

These are the budak-budak Melayu produced by the system. They are the best and brightest nurtured to lead the GLCs and the corporate world and to compete with the rest.

Well, reality sets it. I don’t agree with what some of them did during the election.

They should have known better than to spend resources and time supporting the previous regime when they should be concentrating on work.

They are well-paid – some too well-paid – and yet they were devoting their time to campaigning ferociously for the former premier and his unpopular government. In fact, many of them are accused of focusing on ensuring Dr Mahathir lost in Langkawi in GE14.

It has been argued that they had no choice but to support the government of the day, that they were perhaps pressured to do so.

After all, many of them were appointed to their positions during Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s time.

Little wonder that they were more than eager to be part of the Hebat Negaraku music video, which showcased, to their credit, some of the finest musical and singing skills of corporate bosses the country has ever known. One corporate figure even became an apologist for the most hated policy ever concocted in the country – the Goods and Services Tax.

Now many have left. They are still in their prime. And like me and my media colleagues in 1998, they have all been deemed guilty by association.

It will take another generation to nurture people of their calibre. The Malay community will lose good business leaders yet again, as it did when Musa, Anwar, Daim, Dr Mahathir and Abdullah left their positions.

The winners shouldn’t take all. Regrettably, Malaysia is never good at ensuring continuity. A change of government does not mean that everything the previous government had done is bad.

There are some good policies in place. Continuity must prevail when it matters.

The people must come first because they deserve the best, regardless of who formulated those policies that will benefit the country the most.

We are lucky the change of government was without bloodshed. Nor did it trigger riotous upheaval. We must salute our people for that. But there must be time for adjustments.

It is not easy. The Reformasi movement in Indonesia brought calamity after the ouster of President Suharto. It took more than 10 years and four presidents to see stabilisation. There were a lot of soul-searching and adjustments demanded of the leaders and the people.

We had not experienced a change of government before. The people have spoken. The former premier has fallen from grace and has been charged in court. Let due process prevail. He will have to pay dearly for his alleged wrongdoings if the court finds him guilty.

But the country must move on beyond him. So too his party.

The present government will have a tough time managing the people’s high expectations. For many government leaders today, the burden of governing is much tougher than the business of opposing.

Yet, some of them still have the mentality of being in the Opposition, as Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail pointed out recently.

For now, it is no longer about the triumph of the victors but about engaging with everyone, including the vanquished.